Jul 30, 2008

Dems think EPA Administrator is a tool.

Democratic senators on Tuesday asked the Justice Department to investigate whether the nation's top environmental regulator made false statements to Congress when he testified that his 2007 decision to block California rules governing automobile greenhouse-gas emissions was made independently.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) and two other lawmakers also called on EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to resign. The calls bring to a head a building battle over whether the White House interfered in environmental policy making, including in the California rules.

Anyone with two brain cells to rub together know that Bush's EPA has done nothing that will better the cause of clean air, clean water or just healthier human beings. Its all been political.

By rejecting California's request for a waiver under the Clean Air Act -- the first time the agency has ever refused to grant such a waiver -- the EPA administrator effectively blocked any state from regulating vehicle greenhouse-gas emissions.

Earlier this year, Mr. Johnson told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that "this was solely my decision based upon the law, based upon the facts that were presented to me." But a former EPA official told the committee that the EPA chief had planned to allow California's rules to take hold in some form, but changed his mind amid pressure from the White House.